Could Baylor Have Beaten UConn’s Best?

Baylor’s Brooklyn Pope attempts a shot against Brittany Mallory and Markisha Wright of Notre Dame during the NCAA tournament final on Tuesday.

Baylor had no peers this season in women’s basketball, going 40-0 and winning the national-title game by 19 over Notre Dame. So it’s only fair to compare the Lady Bears to their historical peers: the five other undefeated champions of the past quarter century. And by that tough standard, Baylor looks rather ordinary — a smaller average victory margin over the whole season, and in the NCAA tournament, than all five of its most recent predecessors.

It’s tough for any team to measure up to the four undefeated UConn teams between 1995 and 2010, and Tennessee in 1998. (It’s tough to know how any team measures up to 1986 Texas; the Longhorns’ game-by-game results aren’t readily available.) Baylor certainly had its share of impressive wins this year, including ones over both UConn and Tennessee and two wins by more than 30 points over ranked opponents. But overall Baylor simply wasn’t as dominant as the previous five undefeated champs. Each of those wins over Tennessee and UConn came by single-digit margins, as did a pair of wins over Texas Tech and another win over Texas A&M. In 2009 and 2010, UConn won every game while winning just one by fewer than 10 points — the 2010 national title game against Stanford. Amazingly, UConn’s four undefeated seasons included just four wins by single digits, one fewer than Baylor had this year.